Rapid Response Team (RRT) Cooperative Agreement

The purpose of the NOFO is to facilitate long-term improvements and innovation to the national integrated food safety system by unifying and coordinating federal/state/local human and animal food (HAF) emergency response efforts including:

1) Strengthening the link among epidemiology, lab, and environmental health/regulatory components;

2) Improving States' regulatory and surveillance HAF protection programs to include using Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles and a Unified Command structure to conduct integrated responses to all-hazards HAF emergencies, rapidly identifying and removing tainted food from commerce, and conducting root cause investigations to inform future prevention efforts; and

3) Addressing supporting components, such as training, data sharing, data analysis, communications, continuous process improvement, and development of best practices and other resources to support national capacity/capability development..